Todd Klein's Blog, page 148

Pulled From My Files #80: MERCY Logo

This and all images © DC Entertainment.

In 1990 Disney pulled their comics license from Arizona publisher Gladstone Comics and began creating comics using their characters such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse themselves for the first time in their history. In 1991 I received a call from comics editor Art Young, who I had worked with at DC on their pre-Vertigo titles such as SWAMP THING. Art had been hired by Disney to put together a line of mature-reader titles similar to what he’d worked on at DC, and he wanted me to design some logos for him, which I was happy to do. First I designed a logo for the overall line, Touchmark, which I’ve written about HERE.

Then I designed logos for the three initial Touchmark titles. After a year or so, Disney pulled the plug on the project, probably because they saw it didn’t fit well with the rest of their output, comics and otherwise. In 1993, Art Young brought the projects to DC, who published them in the now-active Vertigo line. Two, ENIGMA and SEBASTIAN O used the logos I’d already designed. The third, MERCY, used a new typeset logo. This post shows the logo designs I did for the project, the first two are above. I felt the story by J.M. DeMatteis and Paul Johnson would look good with a calligraphic logo style, and that’s where I started.

Two more similar approaches, with version 3 being a different approach to the style of version 2.

These designs move away from the calligraphic look, perhaps at Art Young’s suggestion. Version 5 is a more standard serif type look, but with my own style points like the unconnected loop of the R and long lower right stroke. Version 6 is a more typical comics look with block letters.

The choice was version 5 with a much heavier drop shadow, and that was accepted as the final design. I don’t have a copy of the final logo, but it was just like this.

When the book came out from Vertigo, it had a type logo that is somewhat similar to my design, but much narrower and taller. It works fine, though I would have moved it away from the figure.

Other articles like this can be found in the “Pulled From My Files” topic on the right column of this blog, and on the LOGO LINKS page. More when I have time.

Remembered: Summers on Brandy Brook

This and all images © Todd Klein.

Going through some things in our storage room this week, I came upon this map I made in 1966 of an area our family used to spend summer vacation time in, and it brought back good memories. Here are some.

My mother’s parents lived in Dunellen, NJ when I was small, but my grandfather Rex (a nickname, he was actually Leroy Derr) liked to go fishing in New York State, and sometimes my grandmother Elsie would go with him. Some time in the early 1950s, they became friends with a fishing guide named John Rudkoff and his wife Helen. After a few years of spending time together fishing, Rex and Johnny came up with a plan to set up residences next to each other. I think most of the plan was my grandfather’s, but that’s a guess. A small plot of land was bought near the town of Waddington, NY, next to the St. Lawrence River on the border with Canada, which was in the process of becoming the St. Lawrence Seaway.

By the end of the 1950s, two house trailers had been bought and put on the lot, which was about a half acre surrounded by hay fields, and just across a small country road from Brandy Brook, made navigable to the Seaway by the rise in water levels from that project. The two trailers can be seen on the map if you look closely, first buildings down from the upper corner of the road. Johnny and Helen lived in their trailer year round, and kept up the grounds and both trailers. The Derr’s trailer was used in the summer and early fall by our family, and I think we started going there around 1958 or so.

Here are Rex and Elsie Derr enjoying the sun on the patio built outside their trailer. I think that’s their Ford Galaxy 500 in the background, but it could be an earlier car. The trailer was not huge, but it had three small bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room and a kitchen, and quite a few of us could stay in it. When there was a gang, the kids slept on cots in the large garage my grandfather built at the back of the lot. My parents and my siblings Doug and Russ and I would often drive up together for a week or two, then my dad would head back to work and the rest of us stayed for a month or more. My mother’s sister Nancy and her family were also there a lot, and other family members: brothers and sisters of Rex and Elsie and their families, came for shorter stays.

One of the main attractions of the place remained fishing. Johnny acted as fishing guide for all who wanted to go, and fish like perch, bass and the occasional pike were fairly plentiful if you knew the right spots, as Johnny did. Here’s my brothers and I after a day out fishing. My grandfather was creative and ambitious, and the boat in the back left was built by him in his garage in Dunellen one winter, and served us well for years. He was an artist too, and painted the emblem. The Pathfinder’s Club was the original name of the fishing group lead by he and Johnny, taking it’s name from James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, a favorite book of Rex’s. The trailer was named “Camp Ching-catch-gook,” another name from the Cooper book, and everyone who came there had to be given some kind of Indian name. Mine was Little Fox, for instance. (A kind of translation, as Klein means little in German, and Tod is an old Scottish word for fox.)

I was never as interested in the fishing as my brothers and father, but I did enjoy using the riding lawn mower when I was there, the first one we’d ever seen. I also went for long walks and looked for birds I could identify. Up at the corner was a small general store we could walk to for treats, and sometimes they had bundles of comic books with the logos stripped off and returned for credit. It was illegal to sell these remainders, but no one cared in this rural area, and some of my earliest Marvel comics were acquired this way. There was a drugstore in Waddington with new comics that I could get sometimes, but mostly I went to the Hepburn Library, a nice old building probably built with Carnegie money, and borrowed books to read. The women of the family were never as interested in fishing all day either, so some days we went to a small beach on the St. Lawrence near Waddington, where sand had been brought in. We had fun there, too. A half-mile walk there over a hill brought you to a close view of the large freighters travelling up and down the Seaway from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes. Further away was a lock you could visit to see the ships even closer as they passed through.

Sadly, my grandfather died too young in the 1960s, but the rest of the family continued to go to “The Trailer,” as we called it for many years. At some point, Johnny and Helen moved into the farmhouse next door, seen here behind my Mom, and some of their kids lived in the other trailer.

I stopped going up there regularly around 1966, I got my first summer job working with my Dad in the summer of 1967, and worked summers after that. I had high school friends I spent a lot of time with, too, and that seemed more appealing to me as a teenager. But every so often I would go up again and revisit the family at the trailer. Later, my Aunt Nancy and her family took over the property and put in a newer trailer, long overdue, and we had several fun family reunions there up until the mid-2000’s. By then my cousin Bev and her husband Bill were running the trailer, and living in Virginia. Bev loved visiting the camp, and made a lot of friends there, but when they decided to buy a winter home in Florida, having three homes was too much, and they reluctantly sold it.

We had a lot of great times at Camp Ching-gatch-gook, and we all remember it fondly. “The good old days!” as my brother Doug recently said. Family memories we all treasure.

And Then I Read: HAL JORDAN & THE GL CORPS #30

Image © DC Entertainment. Written by Robert Venditti, art by Patrick Zircher, colors by Jason Wright, letters by Dave Sharpe.

The Justice League have contacted GL Corps headquarters on Mogo (I wonder how that works?) to request help. All the Earth-born GLs want the assignment, but it goes to Hal Jordan. When he arrives, his contact is Superman, who tells Hal he was attacked by Parallax, and then Sinestro, who brought him to the antimatter planet Qward. As Clark Kent tells his story, Hal Jordan is assailed by a telepathic voice and the realization Superman himself has been taken over by Parallax. They fight, of course, for most of the issue. As the fight ends a different foe is revealed.

I’m not generally a fan of big hero fights, but this one is visually striking, at least. And it’s kind of fun seeing Superman and the original GL interacting.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: GREEN LANTERNS #30

Image © DC Entertainment. Written by Sam Humphries, art by Carlo Barberi and Matt Santorelli, colors by Ulises Arreola, letters by Dave Sharpe.

Simon and Jessica have been sent a billion years back in time to the planet Malthus, home of the blue guys who became the Guardians of the Universe at a time when they were still figuring out the first power rings. They have teamed with the first seven recruits from the Green Lantern Corps and are trying to take down Volthoom, the first Lantern, whose ring combines the full spectrum of colorful powers. It’s making him rather crazy and extremely dangerous. Simon does not even have his own power ring, it was destroyed by Volthoom, whose powers seem to trump even the team set against him. How can they possibly win and get everyone where they’re supposed to be?

Well done, and I enjoyed the many art spreads in this issue. Recommended.

Rereading: DOCTOR DOLITTLE IN THE MOON by Hugh Lofting

My hardcover edition from 1928, art by Hugh Lofting.

When I first read this eighth book in the Dolittle series as a child, I didn’t like it because Lofting’s depiction of our moon was so different from what I knew to be true. I was an ardent follower of the U.S. Space Program, and read all I could find about actual and potential space travel, as well as lots of science fiction. Lofting’s book is clearly a fantasy, and doesn’t try to reflect what was known about the moon even in his own time. Reading it now as a fantasy, I found it much more enjoyable. Indeed, Lofting’s creativity and even his art seems at a high point here not seen since the second book in the series, “The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle.”

Endpapers by Lofting.

The doctor, his boy assistant Tommy Stubbins, and two of Dolittle’s animal friends, Chee-Chee the monkey and Polynesia the talking parrot have flown to the moon on the back of a giant moth at the request of the moon’s inhabitants. When they get there, though, none of those inhabitants (giant insects at least, and probably more) are present to greet them. Instead, the expedition seems to be under covert surveillance. They are on the edge of the moon’s dark side, and at first are in what seems to be a desert, but as they travel they come across a huge lone tree. Soon an entire forest or jungle is found, where Chee-Chee finds food for them in the form of edible roots and fruit. While Dolittle explores and collects information, he discovers that the plant life seems to be sentient and have a language, and as usual, he can’t rest until he’s learned it. In some ways, the Moon is Earth-like: it has breathable atmosphere (different from ours, but they adapt to it), water in streams and pools, and some of the plants they find are giant versions of things on Earth, like asparagus. The gravity is different, and sound travels much more easily, so distant sounds are often heard. As Dolittle learns the plant language, he begins to learn about the flora, fauna and history. Eventually they are contacted by the only human on the Moon, Otho Bludge, who was on this part of the Earth when it was torn away to become a satellite, and has been here ever since. Long life is one of the Moon’s other features, as is giantism. Otho is a huge giant! He’s also the leader of flora and fauna society, which he has engineered to be a peaceful co-existence between all living things. In addition to insects, the fauna seems to be mostly birds.

Otho has brought the doctor to the Moon to help the inhabitants with medical problems and illnesses, and he does his best to help them. He does so well that they don’t want him to ever leave. Young Tommy Stubbins, now a nine-foot giant boy from the Moon diet, is tricked into returning to Earth on the back of the same giant moth that brought them. When he finally gets back to the Dolittle household, the many animal friends of the doctor are sad that he has not returned, but feel sure he will someday.

This book was meant to be the end of the series, hence the ambiguous ending, but he did come back in “Doctor Dolittle’s Return” about five years later. I’ll be rereading that one next. This one is great fun if you can put aside your knowledge of the real moon and accept it as a complete fantasy.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: THE FLASH #31

Image © DC Entertainment. Written by Joshua Williamson, art by Neil Googe and Gus Vazquez, colors by Ivan Plascencia, letters by Tom Napolitano.

The conclusion of the Bloodwork story has the former Central City coroner turned blood-monster flooding the city with his toxic blood, forcing the citizens to flee, and creating havoc. Barry Allen tries to use his altered and now dangerous powers to stop him, but that only makes things worse, so another plan is needed. I liked that plan. It brings Barry to some personal realizations as well as helping the villain and the city. The art by Neil Googe was less distracting this time (because it’s so different from past issues), but when Gus Vazquez takes over, the style reverts to a more familiar one. A new direction for Barry has him reassigned to Iron Heights prison, which should be interesting, since many of his foes are held there.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: HAL JORDAN & THE GL CORPS #29

Image © DC Entertainment. Written by Robert Venditti, art by Rafa Sandoval and Jordi Tarragona, colors by Tomeu Morey, letters by Dave Sharpe.

In the conclusion to the New Gods crossover, the action takes place at the Source Wall. I find that concept odd and interesting, sort of the wall at the outer edge of the universe, Even though that’s not really a credible idea in the real world, it works well for comics. The giant robots who are programmed to destroy the New Gods (who have turned to the GL Corps for help with that), are there trying to free their creator, Yuga Khan, the father of Highfather, and therefore grandfather of some of the other New Gods like Lightray and Orion. It does seem a bit odd that the character would have a “Genghis Khan” sort of name, but no matter. The might and power of the Corps and the Gods are no match for these robots…or are they? Clever work by the GL leaders find a weakness and exploit it. And I particularly liked what Hal Jordan did with the Omega Beams on his tail. Lots of action, but nice character development, too.

Fun stuff, recommended.

Pulled From My Files #79: LOIS LANE LOGOS

This and all images © DC Entertainment.

In 1996 I was asked by DC’s licensing department to submit designs for a new Lois Lane logo. Either they suggested something very different from the original block-letter Ira Schnapp logo:

or that was my idea, I don’t recall. My first marker sketch, above, was meant to suggest Lois’s handwriting or signature.

My second idea was along the same lines, but using a script style. Both of these are quite tall, but as they were not meant for a comic book cover, I thought that was okay.

By 1996 I was doing some logo treatments completely on my first Mac computer, and the rest of these sketches were done that way. This one uses a font called Isadora Bold, which again suggests handwriting, but in a much more formal and elaborate way.

Here’s the same thing on torn piece of ring-bound notebook paper. Not sure what my idea was, it’s a mismatch, really.

Another idea using the font American Typewriter. This is a more interesting approach, and I probably had fun creating the background story supposedly written by Lois. This font, in the bold weight, is rather balloon-like, though, and doesn’t look very much like real typewriting.

I have no record of being paid for any Lois Lane logo in 1996, so I’m guessing these were all rejected, and I was probably paid a kill fee. The only Lois Lane toy I can find uses the original Ira Schnapp logo.

Here’s the final inked version of another Lois Lane logo from 1986, I can’t find any sketches. The telescoping drop-shadow is overpowering, and also kind of goes the “wrong way” to my eyes now.

When the book was published, the drop shadow had been removed, and it looks much better without it.

More when I have time.

And Then I Read: GREEN LANTERNS #27

Image © DC Entertainment. Written by Sam Humphries, art by Ronan Cliquet, colors by Hi-Fi, letters by Dave Sharpe.

Simon and Jessica have been hurled by Volthoom, the first Lantern, somewhere extremely far from home, after their struggle last issue.  Jessica still has her ring, at least, Simon’s was destroyed. They find themselves on a primitive world with all kinds of aggressive wildlife, and their only chance for help might be buried deep within the planet’s core. In a side story, we see another origin story for one of the seven original members of the GL Corps, and this is the final one, as the end of this issue implies they will be making an appearance together next time.

I’m enjoying this storyline that explores early Lantern history with new material, and also gets the title pair into some more interstellar adventures. Recommended.

And Then I Read: THE FLASH #30

Image © DC Entertainment. Written by Joshua Williamson, art by Neil Googe, colors by Ivan Plascencia, letters by Steve Wands.

The mystery of who is stealing old blood evidence from Central City police labs is solved, and a new villain emerges, BloodWork, the alias of Ramsey, the coroner. His experiments with blood have not only made him invulnerable to physical harm, his blood powers are a formidable threat to The Flash when he’s discovered, and the two engage in battle. Meanwhile, Barry Allen has blown up in front of his boss and the other crime lab staff. Is it years of verbal abuse, or is it the Negative Speed Force talking?

I enjoyed the writing, but the art by Neil Googe, while fine, kept throwing me out of the story because his versions of the characters are so different from the regular or recent artists. Still, recommended.